Health 2.0 & Information Therapy

During the Health 2.0 & Information Therapy conference last week in Boston, the many benefits from both approaches were "debated". For Health 2.0, stories were shared about how patients connected with each other and caregivers to help them manage their decisions of daily life. We also heard about doctors "prescribing information" to patients to further their knowledge about a diagnosis, treatment or lifestyle change. Although the notion of tension between the two approaches was surfaced, it is clear that both are needed to guide the patient on their medical journey.

As a consultant, I searched for examples of technologies enabling patient engagement and empowerment to support better health decisions. After attending many different sessions, I wanted to connect the dots on the enablers. I also continued my effort to help companies team up with others to add more value to the consumer. If we are to make progress, we need to move beyond point solutions to integrated mobile and online tools, supporting the decision process for patients and caregivers at anytime and anywhere.

Designing For Patient Engagement:

Four key themes emerged around capabilities to enable patient engagement. Patients need the ability to:

1. Assemble and Manage Relevant Information
David Cerino, General Manager of the Consumer Health Solutions Group at Microsoft showed the NEW Health Manager from Mayo Clinic. Health Manager enables consumers to gain "individualized health guidance and recommendations", personalized based on the information they input. All of this consumer information is placed into a repository (Microsoft's HealthVault) to share with their families and care givers.

IDEO showed a video about a woman with diabetes who used her cell phone to snap a picture of the target glucose testing ranges that her physician shared. Maybe there is a way for doctors to prescribe and send important information to their patient's mobile device for ongoing reference.

2. "Share Their Story with Doctors"
Susan Edgman Levitan, Mass General Stoeckle Center. emphasized the importance of gathering the story from the patient. Although we currently do a poor job collecting and sharing this information, "it is important for my doctor to have this information to customize care for me".

Dan Hoch, neurologist at Mass General explained that he learns about his patient's experiences through Braintalk. "Patients talk about the disease process, side effects and they compare notes. A lot of these things I do not talk to my patients about". Dan had read about how his patients felt overwhelmed with information and made an effort to distribute his experience, giving them "the best information out there".

3. Participate in Care Changes
Rushika Fernandopulle from Renaissance Health shared their innovative approaches to give the patient more control of their care. One of the many tactics he described was using "Patient Advisory Councils" to understand patient needs for tools and resources to help them manage their health.

Several Boston area healthcare delivery organizations are using Patient Advisory Councils to collaborate with consumers. Susan Edgman Levitan, Mass General Stoeckle Center. mentioned using theirs to test materials with patients and families to "get rid of the medical jargon" and to make sure patients understand the information.

Philips Medical Systems described their latest initiative The "Listening Lab" . Like other leading edge technology companies, Philips will be collaborating with customers online to collect needed insight to bring desired products to market and "remain relevant" to their customers.

Note: Stepping Stone Partners has helped dozens of companies plan and run Advisory Council Programs, both face- to- face and through online communities.

4. Receive Rewards to Motivate Behavior Change
While giving a demo of the Sensei mobile lifestyle management tool, Robert Schwarzberg highlighted the capability to deliver coupons to their cell phone which are "targeted contextually and behaviorally" to the consumer to reward healthy food choices.

The value to the consumer can be increased many fold through the development of a "set of patient engagement capabilities" which are integrated and intelligent and designed to deliver a personalized experience for the consumer.